Apple employee finds out the hard way after moaning on Facebook

Many of us use Facebook or other social networking sites for various things including connecting to friends and family. But you must be careful what you do post online as you never know who may be watching. One Apple employee finds out the hard way after moaning about his employers on Facebook.

A staff member for the company from the UK posted bad comments on the social networking site about Apple and its products, which led to him being fired. The Apple specialist in question took Apple to an employment tribunal but they ruled in the company’s favor according to The Inquirer.

The employee posted a variety of rants about his iPhone calling it his “Jesusphone”, and moaning about an application that messed up his time zone by waking him up at 3 AM. He did use stronger language in his posts that are too strong to be put on a family website.

He didn’t stop there and made a mockery of Apple’s launch of the Beatles back catalogue onto iTunes. Trouble is someone spotted his comments on the site and alerted his boss at the Apple Store he worked at. The Facebook posts were set to private by the Apple Employee, but the tribunal ruled they could have been forwarded to others.

Apple’s policy against employees making critical comments about the company was found enough by the tribunal to uphold the company’s decision to sack the employee. It stated “We take into account their position that the Facebook posts were not truly private and could in fact have been forwarded very easily with the claimant having no control over this process.”

The person involved will now realize that one of his colleagues was not as friendly as he thought after alerting the store manager about the criticism. Do you think Apple were right to fire the employee for his comments?

An employer has a right to expect public support of the company. We may all grouse, privately, about our horrible boss, terrible working conditions, or unfair promotion policies, but the product and company should be supported as long as we depend upon them for our livelihood. Inclusion of an actual written policy eliminates any right (real or perceived) to bad-mouth the company or its products.

It is not too unlike complaining about one’s spouse, cooking, income, appearance, etc. and then expecting bedroom bliss! No, that is the shortcut to the couch and alimony.

Gear259

Typical of Apple killing free speech and individualism. I’m sure this employee will be much better off without Apple.
Now, after posting my comment, will my iphone grass me up? I wait for the lawsuit….

General

@ Gear259 Once speech or action no more have a boundary, then it no more becomes free, that’s why the whole world is running amok. Space is important, when it’s violated, expect a response, it may not be palatable.